Allen Welsh Dulles (April 23, 1893 – January 29, 1969) was an influential director of the Central Intelligence Agency from 1953 to 1961 and a member of the Warren Commission. Dulles was also the younger brother of John Foster Dulles, the contemporary Secretary of State and main United Fruit Company shareholder.

Dulles was active in the Office of Strategic Services in Berne, Switzerland during World War II. He worked on intelligence regarding German plans and activities. Dulles's career was jump-started by the information provided by Fritz Kolbe, a German diplomat and a foe of the Nazis. Kolbe supplied secret documents regarding active German spies and plans regarding the Messerschmitt Me 262 jet fighter. After the war, Dulles became the director of the newly-formed Central Intelligence Agency.

Under Dulles's direction the agency succeeded in its first attempts at removing foreign leaders by covert means. Notably, the elected Prime Minister Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran was deposed in 1953 (via Operation Ajax), and President Arbenz of Guatemala was removed in 1954. These covert operations constituted an important part of the Eisenhower administration's new Cold War national security policy known as the "New Look". Dulles has also been accused of promoting Operation Mockingbird, an alleged program with a goal to influence American media companies.

In March of 1953, Senator Joseph McCarthy began a series of investigations into potential communist subversion within the CIA. Although none of the investigations revealed any wrongdoing, the hearings were still potentially damaging, not only to the CIA's reputation, but to the security of sensitive information as well. At Dulles's request, President Eisenhower demanded that McCarthy discontinue issuing subpoenas against the CIA.

During the Kennedy Administration, Dulles faced increasing criticism. The failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, and several failed assassination plots (the majority of which also utilized CIA-recruited operatives from the Mafia and anti-Castro Cubans) directly against Fidel Castro undermined the CIA's credibility, and pro-American but unpopular regimes in Iran and Guatemala were widely regarded as brutal and corrupt. Dulles was finally fired by Kennedy for his part in drafting the audacious Operation Northwoods document, which called for the CIA to stage real or simulated attacks on American citizens and frame Cuba for them, in order to gain popular support for a war with that country.

Dulles published the book The Craft of Intelligence (ISBN 1592282970) in 1963.

After the John F. Kennedy assassination President Lyndon Johnson appointed Dulles as one of seven commissioners of the Warren Commission. Despite his knowledge of the several assassination plots by the CIA against Castro, he is not documented to have mentioned these plots to any investigating authorities during the Warren Commission.

In 1969 Dulles died of influenza, complicated by pneumonia, at the age of 75.

Preceded by: Gen. Walter Bedell Smith

Director of the C.I.A.

Succeeded by: John_McCone